Selling a Home in a Buyer’s Market in 2026

Denny: Denny, how times have changed. Days of demanding the completion date that you want and offer well over asking, no subjects, pre-inspections, deposits attached are long gone. Everyone knows that. Consumers know that. Realtors know that. Anyone that has listened to our podcast knows that.

But what does the current environment look like? If you are selling a home in 2026, what should you be expecting?

Jamie: Buyers have more leverage and power than they ever have. And sellers, a lot of sellers are still stuck on yesterday’s pricing and expectations.

I mean, it is a complete shift from when we dictated offers were coming in the terms. So not just are buyers pickier, they will not overpay, and when they get to an accepted offer, they may make a fuss over any new discoveries they find.

So it is very common as a seller going into this market. One, recognize you are not pricing for multiple offers. You are pricing at market value and also expect to see some lower offers. So more often than not, we are seeing buyers that will come in low.

And quite frankly, if you get an offer, consider yourself lucky in a lot of cases. So do not be discouraged by having a low offer. Low does not mean end price. Sometimes these low offers come up significantly, but in this kind of market, buyers want to try.

And if you are on market for a long time, buyers are definitely going to try. It is the one week on market new listing where you might have a little more pull. There is a little more sense of urgency there.

But once your listing gets a couple months on market, has a long history, the sense of urgency dissipates and if you get an offer, it is going to be coming in low.

And then new discoveries, I would say pending deals, accepted offers are more renegotiated than ever before. And we are seeing all sorts of reasons for it, too. The percentage is high.

As you were talking, I wrote down three things. One, expect to be on market longer. The days of expecting an offer or multiple offers after your first weekend’s open house are gone in most situations. Expect offers to be under asking.

And as you just mentioned, a lowball offer is not a bad thing. It is a conversation starter. I think that is really key.

And probably the most difficult one for sellers to wrap their head around is do not be discouraged by an offer that you do not like. There is going to be room to negotiate.

As you mentioned, buyers want to throw out a feeler and see how motivated a seller is, but what it really is is just an opportunity to start negotiating with a buyer.

In a lot of cases, there is quite a bit of room on those lower offers. Many of them have come together. It is just understanding your home’s value and where you would like to end and understanding that you are going to likely be accepting something under asking today.

Denny: Yeah. And I would say 90% of the time depending on the market or maybe even more. So we can go a number of different ways with this, but let us give some examples of where we are seeing conversations for renegotiation that we did not see before.

Jamie: I mean it personally, whether it is a ten-year-old condo that has very little items come up, but if it has an expired smoke detector, you might be replacing that expired smoke detector. I literally had that yesterday in an addendum.

Yeah. So it is at that point. And as a seller, eat it. In all cases, the buyer is probably not going to walk away from you putting the line in the sand from that, but maybe they do and it is not worth the risk in a lot of cases.

So oftentimes Denny and I find ourselves conceding to very simple small things just to make sure the deal gets past the finish line, whether it is a broken light, an expired smoke detector, a bathroom fan.

Some of those are legitimate items, but they never came up before or if it was that small of a list, it was not even brought up.

Denny: Yeah. GFCI alerts have come up quite a bit.

Jamie: Yeah. If your 1980 built condo did not have ground fault protection, but nowadays it is expected that your electrical be updated to the modern standards.

And this is what Denny is bringing up as outlets close to sinks that a lot of older places had did not have the code that we have today. Inspectors always bring it up because they like to find stuff that they can point out. And you might be updating an outlet by your sink.

The reason that we are laughing about these things is because they are so minimal comparatively to the grand scheme of things in buying a home in Greater Vancouver that might be 1.6 to $2 million and you are asking to replace a couple GFCI outlets that are $30 each.

Denny: Yeah. Some buyers are more reasonable, but some buyers ask for everything because quite frankly they feel they can. So as a seller, I would say try not to get too emotional in these transactions. An accepted offer is not a sale.

Historically through my career, I would say about one out of three accepted offers fall apart. Maybe it is a little less than that, but I just prep sellers for that because deals do collapse. So if two or three go through, one out of three fall apart. In this market, you are more likely to lose a buyer over small things.

For condos, we are talking about pretty minor items. But for houses, that list can be much larger. The active parts of the segment right now are say mid-century homes or 70s, 80s built homes, older homes that are partially updated.

In a lot of cases, the renovated older home is the most attractive product right now and the most active. But after they do the inspection, what they find about those renovations can come back as well.

An unpermitted renovation, for example, interior renovations, updating a kitchen, bathroom. In the past, unpermitted buyer would disclose it, buyers would be okay with it. There were other buyers that were waiting to buy that home if they did not go through with it. And today, you might experience a renegotiation because of it. I think you had an experience on that, did you not?

Jamie: Yeah. A few days ago, the exact verbiage said to me was unpermitted renovations devalue homes. I said, why? He said, well, it is because it is unpermitted. I said, what does that mean to you? They were like, well, the work was not done correctly. I was like, that is not correct.

Denny: Yeah. So I think education goes a long way in these slower markets where paranoia is at an all-time high. Both with realtors and consumers. But I think education from the realtor perspective is super important right now.

Even just when you are selling single family homes, being able to answer very basic questions about the home on the listing side, how old is the roof? How old is the furnace? How old is the hot water tank? What updates have been done? Were they permitted or not? What electrical materials through the home? What plumbing materials through the home?

Often right now people are renegotiating for hot water tanks more than I have ever seen in my entire career. Hot water tank is an appliance. Home inspectors often will communicate to a consumer that hot water tanks have an 8 to 10 year lifespan and they need to be replaced.

In reality, appliances like a fridge or a hot water tank can last a lot longer than 8 to 10 years. Often now consumers will take that as religion and they will come back and say, well, the hot water tank is 8 years old. We need it to be replaced. So we are asking for $2,500 off.

From a seller perspective, you can tell how that is a bit frustrating and slightly egregious ask, but here we are. This is what to be prepared for.

On the listing side, I think it is really important as a realtor to communicate that very early to a seller. Say, even in the listing appointment, when we get to the point of an accepted offer, that does not mean that is the final sale price. Here is why. This is what is happening currently. This is what buyers feel like.

Buyers feel like they have a lot of leverage, especially when they are one-on-one negotiating, especially when your home has been on market 30 plus days. They feel as a buyer to be buying right now, they feel like they want to get a deal. Asking for that extra few thousand bucks off at the end of the day, in some cases a lot more than that, they feel like they deserve it. It is just that kind of market.

If a buyer is buying a home and they feel like they are the only buyer buying it, anything new they discover might come up. You mentioned hot water tanks, that is very common. Rodent droppings, you find some rodent evidence, then sellers are on the hook for some pest control work now. The GFCI outlets by the sink is common. Quite frankly, it could be anything and everything.

The number one thing is you can kind of feel it in the negotiation where it is going to go. If a seller is kind of holding their price and the buyer wants it, but they are coming above their level a little bit, they might concede at accepted offer point, but that extra $10,000 that they paid in the negotiation is still on their mind. Once they get the inspection report, they are more likely to renegotiate.

I would say not all buyers renegotiate. There are some situations where sellers have done immaculate work and renovations and there is very little to find in an inspection, but there are always items that come up in inspection despite how good the home is. There always is something.

So as a seller, expect renegotiation. If you do not get one, congratulations. You are lucky. The degree of renegotiation can be little to large. It could be as simple as replacing an outlet by a sink to depending on the deal, could be $50,000 plus.

It really comes down to the circumstances of what was found and who the buyer is. Sometimes if a buyer paid more than they wanted to because they got into multiple offers, they might after a week of that pending offer period come back and say, we paid too much. Let us get to the finish line. Then they surprise you with a $50,000 haircut after and see if you say yes because they do not want to go through this again.

Sellers do not take that news well, but as an agent, we prepare them for the likely scenario. If you say yes, here is what happens. If you say no, here is what happens. Obviously, we want to hold your price as much as possible. We are in a market where renegotiation is common and it is our job to guide them on what is reasonable, what is not reasonable, and if this buyer did not buy it, what the next buyer is going to pay.

Jamie: From the seller perspective, you want the deal to get to the finish line. You want to move. You want to sell your home.

Understanding and taking the emotion out of it, understanding that making the buyer feel good with the inevitable renegotiation that happens after home inspections, making them feel good is going to help you get to the finish line.

It does not mean agreeing to every single thing they ask for because some are honestly ridiculous recently. GFCI outlets on $2 million homes, asking for $30 off is crazy. But making them feel good, agreeing to some of the items or giving them a small amount of money off that we believe is reasonable can help you get to the finish line. That is obviously the ultimate goal.

I had somebody ask for $30,000 recently. As a realtor, there are some creative things you can do to help a buyer and buyer’s agent understand that the amount of money they are asking for based on what they are asking for can be crazy.

What I have done a few times recently is just start a checkout in Home Depot Canada and put a few things into it and say, this is $272. You asked for $10,000. That is crazy. We will give you $300 off, whatever it is.

Just being creative to help education. I think a lot again is a little bit of paranoia with negative media and a lot of family members telling people right now, stay away from real estate, markets continuing to go down, today is not a good time to buy.

Helping them get to the finish line with a little bit of education or giving them a little win at the end of the day after the inspection can help the deal get to the finish line.

Denny: Yeah. And what I will add to that is sometimes in negotiation, you can kind of see where the sale price may land within a $10,000 range. Sometimes it makes sense to try to push to get the higher accepted offer knowing that the buyer is the type that is likely going to renegotiate. If they renegotiate, you already had some slush there.

Sometimes if the buyer is at your bottom line price, do we accept the bottom line price? If you go right to the bottom line price easily, that buyer still may want to negotiate off that.

There have been times where negotiating it up an extra 5 to 10 on a condo helps get that slush fund needed for the renegotiation. On a house, it would be probably more.

Prepping a seller that an accepted offer is not the finished sale price. The buyers may ask for things and in your home, you can see which high-risk items might come up.

The one fortunate thing is buyers are not necessarily walking away from these deals. They are asking for things first.

In terms of being ready for it, should a seller get a pre-inspection so they address everything up front? From my experience, sellers are just scrambling to get their home ready and presentable.

All of our suggestions to get a home on market is to get it looking as good as possible so a buyer falls in love with it. The items that come up in inspection that are not as visible, yes, they might find out about those afterwards. But instead of proactively replacing the hot water tank, do not wait to see when it comes up and account for that in the negotiation.

If you have knob and tube wiring, know that that is going to be coming up for sure. That might be an exception where you get that out early. But in a lot of cases, if it is something to the systems of the home, not as visible, where a buyer can still fall in love with the cosmetic way your home looks and feels, and then they find out a few negative things after, if you are aware of those negatives, just be ready for the renegotiation around them.

Moisture behind shower tiles that comes up, there is a difference between 25% moisture content on a shower that was used that morning versus 50% moisture content on a shower that has not been used in a month. There are levels to moisture.

Some showers just show moisture because they were recently used. I have seen inspectors bring up moisture content when it is in the 20s. It is a very different thing than when moisture content is 50% plus. 50% plus, yes, there is an issue there, especially if it was not used that week or that day.

As a seller, if you are concerned about your shower, do not shower for a week in that one and see what the moisture content is. Because if you use it that day and it reads high, that might be a concerning item whether it is warranted or not.

Another thing is fireplaces. This is little simple things. A fireplace is something that should be working if you have a place with a fireplace. Get it working. It is a low cost to have someone come and service it or do it yourself.

If it is not working at the time of inspection, then it becomes, do I need to replace the fireplace? There might be a separate addendum going there. There might be an action item for the seller to get it serviced and prove that it is working. Fireplace might be one of the more proactive ones.

Systems of the home, wiring, plumbing, behind the scenes, some of those if you know there is going to be something that comes up, wait and see what the buyer asks for, but account for it. Mainly focus your efforts on making the home look as good as possible so you get to an accepted offer so you get the pleasure of having the renegotiation instead of no offer, no renegotiation at all.

The unpermitted renovation talk comes up much more in slow markets. A good thing as a seller to keep in mind if you are doing renovations on your home and planning to sell at some point in the future is just keeping invoices.

When buyers go through this process and realize some of the electrical is done without a permit, it is very valuable and provides some peace of mind to show them an invoice that it was done by a licensed electrician. Here is the company name. It talks them off the ledge a little bit versus, oh, the electrical was done 20 years ago by John that we know nothing about.

That is when issues can come up. How do we know it was done correctly? If you do not have an invoice or a company name to share with them, it is a little more challenging to alleviate that concern.

Jamie: Totally. I emphasize if you go the path of unpermitted, the better quality of the trades, the more paperwork, the more confidence. If you go with permits, you are probably doing everything by the book anyway.

What triggers a permit is pretty minimal nowadays. You can just go from a shower head to a shower head and a wand. If you are going by the book, you are adding a different diverter and you are technically triggering a permit.

So there is higher risk, there is lower risk. If you are doing an extension of your home, get permits. Anything on the outside, you have to. That is a big high-risk item. But updating a bathroom in a mid-century home, that is pretty much land value. I do not want to tell you not to, but I am just going to leave that quiet.

Anything else to add, Denny?

Denny: No, I think that was pretty good. Sellers, appreciate an offer when it comes in and just be ready. That is all.